If you break down on the side of a highway, the last thing you want to be sitting on the side of the road for hours. Not only is it dangerous, but you lose valuable time getting to where you’re going. And there are a million other things you could be doing if you weren’t broken down on the side of the road. Having a service desk that can get you back online quickly can be the difference between winning and losing. Service desk “maven” Andrew Vloedman explains.

“The first person to hear about an outage or issue is typically your service desk, and how they handle that first contact can impact all levels of your organization. You may have employees who can no longer access the technology they need in order to work. If your service desk doesn’t handle these situations effectively on that first contact, you can contribute to an inefficiency that costs the company, both directly and indirectly. An outage on a critical tool, not processed properly, can sometimes cost companies millions of dollars!

For example, say you can’t login to a critical order processing tool. If your level one service desk agent cannot solve your problem because of permissions or an ineffective process, how much money have you spent in lost productivity while your ticket remains unresolved? How much has this delay impacted your own customer’s satisfaction? The quicker your issue is solved, the quicker you can return to productivity, and the more money your organization saves both directly and on those hard-to-track indirect costs

An efficient process and a deep knowledge base is key to an effective service desk, since you need to diagnose the problem quickly. It also takes seasoned and experienced agents that understand how your systems and processes are supposed to work to provide an efficient service desk. The quicker you get the ball rolling on a resolution, the less impact the issue or outage has on costs, performance and productivity.

When you’re outsourcing, companies really look at cost as a driver, but they don’t always factor in the value of efficiency with that cost. When you hire a good outsourcing organization, you’re not only getting a service desk, but you’re really contracting with them as a consultant and a thought leader expert to drive efficiencies and save you from those indirect costs.”

If you view your service desk as a cost center, you may want to consider how much it costs if you don’t have the best service desk available.